France: Catholic Muslim tensions rise as Catholics attacked with stones and websites hacked
Initially I was in two minds whether to post on this as my sources are – shall we say – not friendly towards Islam. However, having read earlier today of the petrol bombing of a French satirical paper (Charlie Hedbo) following their decision to appoint Mohammed as its ‘guest editor’ in order to mark the victory of an Islamist party in the Tunisian elections, I’ve decided to highlight two recent incidents.
The first is a report that Muslims have attacked Christians attending a Catholic celebration in Nîmes, Southern France, with stones:
The Joyeuse Union Don Bosco [Joyous Union Don Bosco] takes place in Nîmes, at the Sanctuary of Our Lady the Virgin of Santa Cruz.
After a day of welcoming and reunions, around 7 pm, the participants were leaving in their cars and vehicles when “young Arab immigrants” from the city started to throw stones at the vehicles descending from the sanctuary.
The local police, whose station is in this area, were immediately notified and the event organisers had to arrange a diversion to another route to protect the occupants of the vehicles from the savage attacks which continued.
As a word of caution, this is mainly being reported on anti-Islamic and far-right websites and is based on one media report in the La Provence. An image of the article is available here in French. As I don’t speak French I can’t corroborate the media report and if anyone can do this for me I’d be grateful.
The second report is that of an Algerian Muslim hacker taking control of hundreds of French websites, many associated with the Catholic faith, and replacing their normal content with a boastful graphic and this text:
“Algerian never forget revenge 1 Nov 1954/1 Nov 2011″. This commemorates the 50-year anniversary of the outbreak of the Algerian revolution.
Below the graphic appears a list of 475 websites the hacker claims to have control over, including the main website of the Catholic church in France. A message also proclaims:
No God But Allah and Mohammed is Messenger Of Allah
Isalm Is Real Way
www.discover-islam.net
If these reports are accurate, and I do again urge caution, then this would represent a disturbing escalation in Muslim-Catholic tensions in France.
UPDATE: Blonpidge has informed me that the La Provence report:
Translation was slightly exaggerated. Stones were thrown by youths from neighbouring cities, says nothing about race
They had to detour, but there’s nothing about them being followed and attacked.
Article more about the event. It doesn’t state that the attackers were Muslim.
UPDATE II: Cheradenine Zakalwe of IslamVerusEurope has been kind enough to make the following clarification:
That is not the article I translated. The link to the article I translated is given at the bottom of at the bottom of my original post:
http://www.petitsechodoran.com/l-immigration/l-immigration,r369828.html
The other article has less detail. Of course it doesn’t describe the attackers as “Muslim”. In many European countries, there are laws and trade regulations that prevent journalists honestly describing ethnic minority perpetrators of crime. Often, you have to read between the lines. The article I did translate is less restrained.
Tags: Catholic, News, Religion Society
November 2nd, 2011 at 11:15 am
The article you link to is not the article I translated. The link to the article I translated is given at the bottom of my original post:
http://www.petitsechodoran.com/l-immigration/l-immigration,r369828.html
The other article has less detail. Of course it doesn’t describe the attackers as “Muslim”. In many European countries, there are laws and trade regulations that prevent journalists honestly describing ethnic minority perpetrators of crime. Often, you have to read between the lines. The article I did translate is less restrained.
November 2nd, 2011 at 11:23 am
Thank you for your clarification, I’ve updated the blog post.
November 2nd, 2011 at 11:33 am
Google Translate is really quite good for French to English. Point it at the page in question.
November 2nd, 2011 at 11:35 am
In hoc signo vinces†
“The magazine denied it was trying to be provocative.”
In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Yeah, it was my fault Roger, the article I thought it was translated from was only available as an image.
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:19 pm
You pointed out what you perceive to be the ‘far-right’ websites but failed to mention that, by those criteria, Hurry Up Harry and the BBC are ‘far-left’.
Actually, a lot of the comments to the Hurry Up Harry article are quite good, apart from the dope that made this comment: “does the fact that dozens upon dozens of cities have seen mosques firebombed mean extreme right wing law is de facto in power there?” Reminds me of that time that a ‘far-left’ extremist tried to convince me that thousands upon thousands of non-muslims were publicly protesting against the motoons back in 2006. I did an Internet search on all the major news sites world-wide and came up blank so asked the ‘far-left’ commenter where these protests were being held at which point the ‘far-left’ commenter disappeared and wouldn’t talk to me again.
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Well it’s fair to say Tim that Harry’s Place is left wing and probably the same goes for most of the BBC corp.
I like Harry’s Place a lot as it happens, I’ve a great deal of respect for them and they’re particulalry good at rooting out extremism.
What I meant to infer, is that when I searched online for corroboration of the Nîmes story, I was mostly greeted with anti-Jihad websites and the likes of the EDL etc, which had simply picked up on, and repeated, IslamVerusEurope.
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:31 pm
I was being deliberately provocative, as France24 described Hebdo. But unlike the muslims I know for a fact you are going to take it in good humour and not go round fire-bombing anyone, lol.
I agree about Harry’s Place. They can speak out quite loudly on issues that need discussing.
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:44 pm
But unlike the muslims I know for a fact you are going to take it in good humour and not go round fire-bombing anyone, lol.
Oh don’t be so sure Tim, you know how radicalised and extreme I am
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:53 pm
I took a poll on who makes the very best comments on the Internet, and according to the person, I mean I mean, the results I obtained my comments got 100% of the vote.
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Harry’s Place embodies the dhimmi mentality that pervades the elite commentators of the western world. According to this view, if there are any problems associated with Islam, they must be caused not by ‘Muslims’ but by ‘Islamists’.
The idea that Islam itself might be problematical or poisonous is rejected a priori and anyone who subscribes to it dismissed as an extremist.
Rational argument does not matter. Historical evidence does not matter. The content of Islam’s “holy” texts, the actions of its supposed founder or the statements of Muslims themselves do not matter.
Anyone who thinks that a religion itself can be intrinsically wicked must, in their view, be some kind of lunatic, meriting censorship if not prosecution.
Apart from anything else, the Harry’s Place crowd are also hypocrites. While flaunting the slogan “Liberty, if it means anything, means telling others what they don’t want to hear”, they practise pre-moderation of comments. The last four – perfectly polite and reasonably comments – I posted there did not appear. As a result, I rarely visit the site any more.
The view that Islam is not inherently problematical cannot withstand serious scrutiny. Therefore the only strategy for Islam’s apologists is to prevent that scrutiny taking place.
November 2nd, 2011 at 4:07 pm
“The view that Islam is not inherently problematical cannot withstand serious scrutiny. Therefore the only strategy for Islam’s apologists is to prevent that scrutiny taking place.”
On that, Cheradenine, I wholeheartedly agree. Re Harry’s Place, I do find many of the comments quite good…provided I agree with them, lol.
And now, a joke before I switch off my PC as I have far too much to do but will return this evening.
A little old man is walking down the road.
Suddenly, the devil appears before him in all his terrifying monstrosity.
The little old man just looks up at him and laughs.
“AREN’T YOU SCARED OF ME???” booms the devil.
“Why should I be?” says the little old man, “I’ve been married to your sister for forty-eight years.”
November 3rd, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Swiss member of parliament has had enough